The rise of victimhood culture Microaggressions, safe spaces, and the new culture wars

Bradley Keith Campbell

Book - 2018

"The Rise of Victimhood Culture offers a framework for understanding recent moral conflicts at U.S. universities, which have bled into society at large. These are not the familiar clashes between liberals and conservatives or the religious and the secular: instead, they are clashes between a new moral culture--victimhood culture--and a more traditional culture of dignity. Even as students increasingly demand trigger warnings and "safe spaces," many young people are quick to police the words and deeds of others, who in turn claim that political correctness has run amok. Interestingly, members of both camps often consider themselves victims of the other. In tracking the rise of victimhood culture, Bradley Campbell and Jason Man...ning help to decode an often dizzying cultural milieu, from campus riots over conservative speakers and debates around free speech to the election of Donald Trump."--Back cover.

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Subjects
Published
Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan [2018]
Language
English
Main Author
Bradley Keith Campbell (author)
Other Authors
Jason (Jason P.) Manning (author)
Physical Description
xxvii, 278 pages ; 21 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9783319703282
  • 1. Microaggression and the culture of victimhood. Microaggression and its discontents ; Microaggression and moral change ; Beyond microaggression ; Why call it victimhood culture?
  • 2. Microaggression and the structure of victimhood. The sociology of conflict ; Conflict and third parties ; Campaigning for support ; Domination as deviance ; The social structure of microaggression ; Purity and tolerance
  • 3. Trigger warnings, safe spaces, and the language of victimhood. Trigger warnings ; Safe spaces ; The harms of safety ; The language of harm ; Failure to communicate ; The harms of harm
  • 4. False accusations, moral panics, and the manufacture of victimhood. The logic of false accusations ; Hate crime hoaxes ; Credulity and false accusations ; Due process and false accusations ; False accusations and moral panics ; Campus rape hoaxes ; "Rape culture" and moral panic
  • 5. Opposition, imitation, and the spread of victimhood. Why moral cultures spread ; Moral culture and child socialization ; Moral culture and social class ; Opposition and backlash ; Competitive victimhood
  • 6. Sociology, social justice, and victimhood. The promise of sociology ; The promise of social justice ; Social justice and victimhood culture ; Sociology and social justice ; Beyond sociology
  • 7. Victimhood, academic freedom, and free speech. The idea of free speech ; The idea of censorship ; Censorship on campus
  • 8. Conclusion. The puzzle of moral cultures ; Sociology as deviance ; Clarifying the campus culture wars ; Moral technology.
Review by Choice Review

Comprehensive, measured, and well researched, this may be the most important book of the year. Period. Sociologists Bradley Campbell (California State Univ., Los Angeles) and Jason Manning (West Virginia Univ.) trace the history and development of "victimhood culture" in the US and the culture wars that have engulfed the country as a result of that victimhood mentality. The authors do a masterful job of explaining the nation's shift from a culture of honor, to a culture of dignity, to one of victimhood. The last is marked by hypersensitivity to any perceived slight and often leads to exaggeration and the need to publicly highlight one's victimization through appeals to sympathetic authorities and allied third parties. On college campuses in particular, the rise of structures and procedures to address such slights (aka microaggressions) has led to the institutionalization of "safe spaces," "trigger warnings," and a proliferation of counseling centers, administrators, and support staff. The shift has also resulted in a series of destructive, unintended consequences, including moral panics, false accusations, curtailing of free speech, assaults on academic freedom, "competitive victimhood" (across the lines of race, class, gender, religion, and sexual orientation), and incidents of violent backlash. Required reading for those seeking to move beyond the seeming downward spiral of becoming a nation of victims. Summing Up: Essential. All readers. --John R. Mitrano, Central Connecticut State University

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.